Hyderabad: In order to improve existing climate prediction models in the country, researchers from India are collaborating with their counterparts in the United States. As part of this initiative, Environmental Protection Training and Research Institute (EPTRI) held a workshop on ‘High Resolution Climate Projections and Analysis for India’ in Hyderabad on Monday.

The workshop features top environmental scientists from US who are sharing their knowledge of computing models to predict accurately temperatures, rainfall, pressure, pollution and all other aspects of climate change, said Director General of EPTRI, B Kalyan Chakravarthy.

“The stress is on collaborating and understanding from the US researchers, about what they are planning to do about climate change so that we can learn from them the best ways to tackle the challenge at a local level,” he said.

The scientific sessions will enable researchers to better understand the variations in climate change at the local level.

More than 50 delegates representing premier environment research institutes from the US and 16 Indian States are attending the climate change India-US workshop titled ‘High Resolution Climate Projections and Analysis for India’.

Principal Secretary (Environment) Dr Rajat Kumar, who inaugurated the workshop, said that the State government was implementing the schemes Mission Kakatiya and Haritha Haram for climate mitigation.

Dr David Easterling from US NOAA National Centre for Environmental Information (NOAA-NCEI) said, “Working with India will help improve the overall advancement in down-scaling the impacts of climate change.”

Dr Ken Kunkel from North Carolina State University, CSR Murthy from Nabard, Associate Consul General for the US Geoffrey Chin, Dr Ashwini Kulkurni from IITM, Dr Sesha Srinivas and other delegates spoke on day one of the workshop.

In addition to EPTRI, the climate change workshop was organised by Institute for Tropical Meteorology (IITM), the US Department of State, NOAA-NCEI, the Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites – North Carolina State University.

‘Good environment as important as development’

Director General of EPTRI, B Kalyan Chakravarthy is a firm believer in climate change. The top EPTRI official told Telangana Today that climate as a whole is undergoing a change which could potentially impact the entire animal species.

On climate change

Primarily, there is a need to understand climate change at various levels. There is a certain pattern of temperature, pressure, flow of air and water currents, making up a complete system. Over a period of time, the system remains constant and predictable.

At present, however, the system is undergoing changes because of excessive emission of greenhouse gases and carbon dioxide. Due to this, environment as a whole is undergoing changes, which could impact several species of life.

Impact on human life

Floods, drought, extreme heat and sudden extreme rainfall are all caused by the change in the climate system. What does the farmer know about climate change? They plan according to conventional knowledge. Why is there 200 mm of rainfall? How will the crop and the farmer survive? We need to know and inform the farmers about such extreme changes.

For Telangana, what is the vision of EPTRI?

We must provide clean air, clean water and a healthy environment to the people of the State. A good environment is as important as development. The State government has mooted a ‘Clean Air Authority’ to be set up soon. We are of the view that such a body needs to be set up at the earliest. We have also proposed for 192 forest blocks in and around Hyderabad to be developed as lung spaces and the Forest Department has responded positively.